The picture above was taken a few weeks ago when I was taking a walk. It was a very nice day, and there were a good amount of people walking around. (There were even two men fishing.) I suppose all that might have died down since then, what with growing awareness of COVID-19's seriousness. As I reflected last week, it's a nice thought that the world (at least in the northern hemisphere) is being reborn, even while we're sort of dying. In saying that, I don't mean to make light of the people who really are suffering a great deal because of the coronavirus. I, for one, am not really suffering; for me, the whole thing is more a strange numbness. I do think it's poetic (and that word is hackneyed, I know, but I think it's applicable here) that, as the world is being reborn in spring, we have the chance to be reborn to a new way of handling our daily lives. I don't believe in reincarnation, at least not dogmatically and in a literal sense, but it's a nice image, nonetheless.

When I was walking by Crystal Lake in Newton, MA, I noticed a tremendously large fish in the shallow water by the shore. I know very little about fish, so I don't know what kind I was looking at. It reminded me, at any rate, of the enormous koi fish I saw when I was in Buenos Aires and visited the city's Japanese Garden. When I was a little kid, I (no joke) fervently believed in the Loch Ness Monster; since I live by the water in Quincy, MA and have vacationed on Cape Cod and on lakes in Maine since I was little, I've always felt a special relationship with water. Anyway, it occurs to me that, of course, like fish underwater, things in nature exist in their own worlds. We have to exist in our own worlds, now, too; we need to learn to be alone with ourselves and with others, and that can be difficult.

One thing is certain: there can be no going back from the world we're in now, and we should at least notice the beauty around us while we're at it.